Buried With Christ, Raised With Christ

Alba 9-19-2021

BURIED WITH CHRIST, RAISED WITH CHRIST

Romans 6:1-14

Way back in 1854, the 61-year-old Sam Houston of Texas fame was baptized by a Baptist minister named Rufus C. Burleson at Rocky Creek near Independence, Texas.

Houston had been known in his younger years as a rough living man and a drinker. A church periodical reported his baptism this way:

“The announcement of General Houston’s immersion has excited the wonder and surprise of many who have supposed that he was ‘past praying for…’”

Houston reportedly joined in the joke. When a friend slapped him on the back and said, “General, now your sins are washed away!” Houston replied, “Well, then --- I pity the fish downstream!”

There is a hymn, O Happy Day, and the chorus says:

Happy day, happy day,

When Jesus washed my sins away!

He taught me how to watch and pray,

And live rejoicing ev'ry day;

Happy day, happy day,

When Jesus washed my sins away.

That is the experience we have when we come to Jesus in faith, repenting of our sins, confessing His name and are baptized into Christ.

Because of our acceptance of and identification with Jesus in our baptism, we have reason to rejoice! That's what Romans six tells us.

Turn to Romans 6:1-14 as I read. 1 What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? 2 Certainly not! How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it? 3 Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death?

4 Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.

5 For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection, 6 knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin. 7 For he who has died has been freed from sin.

8 Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, 9 knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no longer has dominion over Him. 10 For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. 11 Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

12 Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts. 13 And do not present your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. 14 For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace.

As the apostle Paul writes these words to the Christians in Rome, there is something very apparent. He talks about baptism in a way that shows it was a given that all of them were baptized, immersed into Christ.

And you can look and be sure, the New Testament knows nothing about any “unbaptized” Christians.

The beginning of the church of our Lord Jesus is recorded in the book of Acts chapter two. There it tells how Peter shares the message about Jesus.

His audience hears it, many believe it, many are “cut to the heart.”

The Holy Spirit deals with their sin. It is a shattering realization that makes them ask, “What should we do?”

Peter’s answer? “Repent” (which means to turn from sin toward God) “and be baptized” (literally = immersed…completely covered) “in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit”

Then it tells us that on that day 3,000 people were baptized, and the church began on that Pentecost Sunday.

Whether to be baptized or not has never been a question in scripture. What has been a question is how and when should one be baptized. There are those who sprinkle some water. There are others who pour water. And they all call it baptism.

The problem is that the word for baptism in scripture has but one meaning. It means to dip, or immerse.

If the original meaning of the word was translated in our Bibles, it would read, be immersed.

We go down into the water just as Jesus was buried in the tomb. We are under the water as Jesus was three days in the tomb. And we come up from the water just as Jesus came out of that tomb.